


Storm's Brew

by AppleSoda



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken | Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword
Genre: Campfires, Comfort Food, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 13:38:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15558900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AppleSoda/pseuds/AppleSoda
Summary: When a sudden burst of rain places Guy in a tent sharing a familiar drink with his stern tribesman, he gets more of a reminder of home than he bargained for.





	Storm's Brew

The satisfaction of a day’s pay well earned thrummed through Guy’s limbs as he sheathed the blade at his side and trudged through the grassy plain where he and the rest of a scouting party from Eliwood’s army had cut off a band of Black Fang fighters. The months he had spent with soldiers had done him good, and he had formed an easy rapport with most of the soldiers. Still, there were a few holdouts that even his talkative personality couldn’t wear down.

 

Guy had spot his fellow Kutolah tribesman from the first moment he excitedly saw the familiar wolf brand on attached to the horse’s saddle. Everything about him reminded Guy of home, from the flight of arrows from his bow to the particular weave of the woolen headwrap tied tightly around his pine-green plainsman’s hair.

 

The problem was that Rath always acted like he would rather be set on fire than spend more than a minute speaking to him. For a chief’s son who almost certianly would have had lessons on what it meant to talk to clan and kin, he didn’t act like it one bit.

 

But that wasn’t a problem. A mercenary faced down all sorts of people in and out of battle.

 

“That was a close one, wasn’t it?” He caught his breath as Rath, ever-stern and never wavered from the arrows he fired from atop a horse. Even his movements out of battle were precise, as if he loathed the notion of wasting a second of his time. “I could see that mage trying to send lightning at you. “

 

“I had him in my sights. Your ‘help’ drew the attention of two of his allies.” Even the plains-bred horse, which picked its way nimbly through the grasslands, seemed to stare at Guy with disdain. Typical. Even the mildest of horses that his family had bred had never taken a liking to him enough to form the bond that was necessary to shoot with deadly aim from the saddle.

 

“But everything worked out!” Guy found himself rebutting, his voice so bright that it could have been called a weapon all on its own. “I cut them all down before they were even able to get close.” With a grin, he gestured out onto the silent plains, as if its stillness and absence of danger was the harvest of his work.

 

“Temporarily,” the archer punctuated the statement flatly. “…Do you chirp like this every time you hunt down your targets?” His eyes flickered to the sky as he dismounted from the horse and went to his packs, undoing the leather ties to the largest one.

 

Guy clucked his tongue, and did his best imitation of the scowl that always seemed to be present on Rath’s face. “Well, excuse me for trying to think positively.”

 

“Help me with this.” Sturdy lightweight sticks that would form a small tent were pressed into his arms in a hurry. Rath was unfolding a length of thin, coated felt that would repel water and cold that just about every plainsman— save him— would have in his saddlebags. Finding a spot that would suit a shelter, Guy set down the stakes to the tent as Rath secured his horse undernearth the boughs of a tree, giving it enough room to graze but not enough to bolt off into the night.

 

The crack of lightning rang out across the grasslands, scattering birds from their tranquil perches across the field and as sure as a warning shot from a ballista. In a matter of minutes, the two of them had put a small tent with a fire pit had been prepared with an efficiency that would have made Guy’s mother proud. She was the one who had drilled the routine into him each time they packed up and moved the family _ger_ to better grazing grounds or when chief Dayan called her and his other lieutenants to an inter-tribal council.

 

As the rains began to fall without further warning, Guy allowed himself one wistful glance at the familiar structure that reminded him of home before ducking under the brown-and-green embroidered felt to hide out the rain.

 

= = =

 

The slow bubbling boil of a travel kettle was the only noise in the tent as Guy watched Rath jimmy open a small jar with a utility knife, scooping two familiar yellow-colored lumps into plain earthenware cups and adding a bit of sugar to one with a tiny silver spoon.

 

“Is that butter tea?! I haven’t had that in years!” He exclaimed, not caring if he sounded like a child on New Year’s.

 

“It is,” replied Rath. “I don’t make it too often, after comments about how strange it must be to add butter to tea from the Lycians. But you’re probably not going to say something about not being used to it.”

 

“Oh, you know Lycians. They’re never going to understand anything about good food.” Guy waved his hand, knowing well what complaints some of the soldiers in Eliwood’s army had whenever a village they traveled through served anything that wasn’t salted fish, cheese or plain bread. He had half a mind that a few of them were scared to death of seasonings, but valued his pay too much to say anything about it. Once Guy had even seen Lady Lyndis turn on one unfortunate man disdainfully when he spoke of “savages” eating freshly-hunted game, eyes flashing with anger. For half a second, he considered defecting to Caelin after the war in hearing the fierceness of her conviction. The Lorca, her tribe, were unfamiliar to him, adding to the list of questions on his mind for when he met his mother again.

 

It was nice, between her and Rath, to have people that understood where he was coming from. The difference was that whenever he saw the bow-knight draw arrow to bowstring, Guy was determined to prove that he could keep up, to try to win glory despite his ineptness from the saddle.

 

But that could wait for another time. He had a potential but temporary reprieve from Rath’s criticism, and he was going to enjoy it.

 

With a curt nod, Rath handed him a serving of tea. As Guy sipped the beverage, he kept his caution, noticing the wary look that their army’s deadliest sharpshooter cast at him. It was rich, dense, and would help pass the time as rain pounded the side of the felt tent around them. Though both young men kept their limbs folded as they had been taught to save space, having grown up in families that moved constantly, the space seemed to press in on Guy in a peculiar way.

 

“Drink it before it gets cold.”

 

Was it his imagination, or was Rath…worried about whether or not he would _like_ the tea?

 

Any good swordfighter worth half his coin learned to read opponents in and out of battle, to figure out how they worked. For most of the time that he had known him, Rath appeared to be a person in which shyness was impossible, thundering through the battlefield with arrows so deadly that they could have been fired from the legendary Mulagir itself. Then again, they lived in extraordinary times, with assassins and a Sacaean lady that moved as swift as the winds was a queen of her own Lycian domain. Impossible things could become reality quite easily.

 

He exhaled in a soft breath after downing the last of the butter tea, stretching his legs out lazily with content grin. Something about the motion had set Rath on edge, he noticed. But not one of alarm.

 

Nobody like that could ever let their guard down easily.Yet, on what appeared to be the rainiest of days in a grassland somewhere near a Lycian fief likely overrun with Black Fang assassins, Rath was in a mood to play host and speak more than two sentences to him. A warmth stirred in Guy’s chest, and curiosity welled up in it. He had to do whatever it took to make the quiet but inexplicable pull between them last a little longer.

 

“Could I…” Though the rest of the sentence was punctuated by a swallow of whatever tea was left or words he was meant to say. In the dimming and distant firelight, Rath’s eyes glinted like they had been shot through with gold sparks, taking away the jokes and jibes he used as a defense in one smooth motion. In a silent reply to the question, he slid two sets of fingers, rough and callused by years of handling bowstrings, along the side of Guy’s face and neck, pulling him closer swiftly.

 

Nothing Rath did was without purpose, and that must have included the preciseness with which his tongue traced the outline of Guy’s lower lip, exhaling his emotions in one slow, content breath that seemed to snake into the swordfighter’s belly and into his bloodstream; he was certain that it and it alone drove his heartbeat for one brief moment. Burrowing against him so that his chest was flush against Rath’s shoulders, he eagerly drank in a sight of desperation— loneliness too— that he had suspected was the case.

 

Though Guy had ventured out from the plains with an understanding that the world was different and that it would be some time before home was a reality again, but that it would make him stronger. But strength wasn’t the same as nourishment, which also wasn’t the same thing as fulfillment.

 

The taste of tea lingered as they parted, and the room had looked distant and hazy as Guy found his bearings and straightened out the front of his jacket, then moved to do the same with the front of Rath’s _deel_. He caught the hint of a smile, but no more from the bowman as he moved to his packs and brought out dowels for arrowheads.

 

As the rest of the rain passed them by, he nestled into Rath’s side and simply listened to the steady scratch of a whittling knife cutting into arrows, honing each dowel, one by one, into something surer and sharper.

 


End file.
